Having worked at several startups with large environments where development routinely was leaned upon to jump into production I firmly believe that ideally developers should not install their software (or even touch it) once it is released. Allowing them to do so leads to band-aids, hacks, lack of documentation, short-cuts, and all other manners of badness.

Strictly maintaining that division between development and IT/end users helps ensure that development maintains a complete package. Incumbent in that is that the appropriate feedback loops into development must be established, implemented, and acted upon. Bug reporting, issue tracking, customer feedback, and the like are critical bits of information that cannot be ignored by development.

I'm sorry, but the lions share of the tax money (at least in CA) is not going to major corporations in the form of incentives. Most of it goes to state employees' salaries and benefits, the latter of which is grossly out of whack in this state.

I'm all for keeping a close eye on corporate/government activity, but saying that taxes are high because of it is just incorrect.

Having owned (and legally bought) D1, D2, the D2LoD, Starcraft, and Starcraft 2 I can honestly say that Blizzard packs enough value into their games (and supports them long after they need) that they've built up a reservoir of trust with their fans that I doubt they'll want to jeopardize. The fact that you can still plan D2 online 12 years after it was released is pretty amazing. Given the near ubiquitous access to broadband by gamers I don't fear need to be required to be online.

"Sorry your honor, I used a very long password made up of computer-generated, random characters: one that I could not possibly remember. I had it written on a scrap of paper on my desk and would only need to type it in on the infrequent chance that I had to reboot my computer..... You should ask the detectives to re-search through the evidence they collected as the scrap of paper is likely in what they took."

Posted
by
samzenpus
on Thursday October 28, 2010 @01:17PM
from the I-hate-time-travel-stories dept.

Many of you have submitted a story about Irish filmmaker George Clarke, who claims to have found a person using a cellphone in the "unused footage" section of the DVD The Circus, a Charlie Chaplin movie filmed in 1928. To me the bigger mystery is how someone who appears to be the offspring of Ram-Man and The Penguin got into a movie in the first place, especially if they were talking to a little metal box on set. Watch the video and decide for yourself.

Posted
by
Soulskill
on Saturday January 09, 2010 @06:21AM
from the you-didn't-think-it-was-over-did-you? dept.

kaychoro writes "There may be hope for Duke Nukem Forever (again). 'Jon St. John, better known as the voice of Duke Nukem, said some interesting words during a panel discussion at the Music and Games Festival (MAGFest) that took place January 1 – 4 in Alexandria, Virginia, according to Pixel Enemy. Answering a question from the crowd regarding DNF, St. John said: "... let me go ahead and tell you right now that I'm not allowed to talk about Duke Nukem Forever. No, no, don't be disappointed, read between the lines — why am I not allowed to talk about it?"'"

mrcaseyj writes: California penal code section 537e makes it a felony punishable by up to 3 years in prison to be in possession of an integrated computer panel where the serial number or any other distinguishing number or identification mark has been covered. It's also a crime punishable by 6 months or a year to cover or obliterate the serial number or identification mark of just about any other personal property, from tools to CDs and much more. While a district attorney might have a hard time prosecuting you for such a crime, it appears a police officer could still take you to jail without having to worry about getting in trouble, because covering is apparently illegal by the letter of the law.